Tag Archives: YA fantasy

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Book Review: Shattered Kingdom, by Angelina J. Steffort

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I think I won this copy of Angelina J. Steffort‘s Shattered Kingdom. I do not recall where from; however. Unfortunately, this is a book I found on my shelf that I had forgotten about. It’s a new year, and I’m setting a goal to be better about reading my physical books, and this is a perfect example of why.

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Sworn to a goddess. One with her blade. A heart yet unbroken.

It would have been only one more year of training. One year in the dust and wind of the Calma Desert. But Gandrett Brayton’s fate storms in disguised as a beautiful stranger with a damning secret.

As he forces her into the service of the lord who tore her from her mother’s arms ten years ago to commit her to the Order of Vala, Gandrett is left with a choice: run, or work for the man she despises and earn the chance to see her family again.

Trained with all the weapons she can wield with her hands, Gandrett must learn that at the courts of the shattered kingdom of Sives, her sword won’t help her– especially when it is her own heart on the line.

my review

This was fine, if overly long and, consequently, feels slow. I liked the characters, and the world seems interesting. However, it’s very, very focused on the I’m not like other girls heroine who embodies just about ALL the cliched YA heroine tropes. She’s not clumsy in a trip-over-her-own-feet way (though she is socially graceless, which might check the same box). But just about every other cliche is there. Which means nothing here feels very original.

I got annoyed with four main issues, though. These aren’t necessarily problems, just things that annoyed me. First, for being such a fantastic fighter, she does amazingly little fighting and loses every time. Second, she grew up in an isolated group, learning to fight. The effects of that should have been visually and linguistically apparent, not just in scars. This book takes no account of accents and the physical effects of a brutal lifestyle when it decides a warrior from a remote outpost is the ideal person to disguise as a lady. Third, I was annoyed that every boy/man she encountered fell for her hard and fast, and she didn’t notice. (Yep, it’s a YA trope, but it annoyed me.) And last, Nehelon’s obsession/love gave me the ick. It wasn’t the hundreds-of-years age gap. That’s pretty common in fantasy romance. It was the way she was underage, and he started obsessing over her from afar without her knowing or doing/participating in anything  to provoke or encourage it. The reader is given no real reason for it. Like, there is no point shattered kingdom photowhen we saw him start to fall in love with her or to appreciate anything about her as a person. It felt very old-man-lusts-after-young-girl, very pervy uncle who’s just waiting for her to be legal. This is a longish series, and I think probably nothing will happen until she is older. But it still felt icky to me here.

All in all, despite my annoyances, the book kept me entertained for the time I spent with it. If I came across the rest of the series at the library, I’d likely read it. I don’t think I’d buy it, though.

Other Reviews:

Shattered Kingdom, by Angelina J. Steffort [review] — a massively UNDERRATED fantasy romance

 

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Book Review: Wake and Fade, by Lisa McMann

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Some years back, I picked up a second-hand copy of Lisa McMann‘s Fade at a charity shop somewhere because it was signed. I do love a signed book. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, least of all that it is 2nd in the series. Well, as I’ve challenged myself to read my physical TBR books this year (and have, so far, managed to stick to it), I borrowed Wake from the library. I reviewed them as I finished them.

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For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people’s dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie’s seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can’t tell anybody about what she does they’d never believe her, or worse, they’d think she’s a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn’t want and can’t control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else’s twisted psyche. She is a participant.

my review

Wake:

This was a seriously quick read. I started it after dinner, and by the time I went to bed around 11, I’d finished it and about a 1/3 of Fade (book 2). And to my complete surprise (because I’m sometimes iffy about YA), after a somewhat slow start, I enjoyed it. I liked the almost diary-like setup (part of why it reads so fast) and the main characters. I found the side characters to be pretty clichéd and unexciting. However, the book primarily focuses on the main character, who is a practical sort of girl in a tough situation, and her male counterpart, who is particularly endearing in his caregiving.

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Fade:

I thought this was a finely written book, but I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as book one. I suffer from pretty severe rape-fatigue when it comes to rape in the books I read for entertainment and…yeah, I could go the rest of my life without reading one more book centered on men taking advantage of girls. So, the plot was a flop for me. But I can still acknowledge that I like the character and her love interest and appreciate McMann’s YA writing. There, technically, is a 3rd book in the series (and the library probably has it). But I feel like this book stopped at a good place for a break.

Other Reviews:

JKR Books: Wake & Fade

 

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Book Review: Child of Etherclaw, by Matty Roberts

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I accepted a review copy of Child of Etherclaw, by Matty Roberts during it’s book tour with iRead Book Tours. It’s also been featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. You can hop on over here for an excerpt and/or here for an author interview.

The bonds of family go well beyond blood.

But can those bonds hold when the blood itself carries a devastating secret?

Fenlee’s opal necklace had always radiated a certain warmth since her mother’s death. But now, at sixteen, her world begins to unravel as the stone sparks to life, revealing itself to be an otherworldly artifact of untold power.

Between her mechatronics studies at the academy and scavenging expeditions beneath the sprawling city of New Cascadia, Fenlee and her
adopted brother, Elliot, try to decipher the mysteries of her necklace and its link to events in Fenlee’s past.

But they’re not alone in their search.

Strange undercity dwellers offer cryptic warnings, drones track their movements, and deadly corporate agents lurk in the shadows. When tragedy rips Fenlee’s family apart, she must learn to use the artifact’s power to save those who are deeply precious to her. But nothing can prepare her for the dark truths that she will uncover on that journey…

“Lee,” Elliot mumbled. “I’m not who you think I am.”

my review

child of etherclaw photoWhat I appreciated most about this book was the myriad of representations. The main character is an amputee (without drama, it’s just her reality), there’s an adoptive family, found family, gender parity in a number of powerful characters, sexual and racial diversity, etc. But the writing is also very good, the cover is eye-catching, and I liked the characters a lot. I really felt the siblings’ love for one another.

I did think that the parental figure (and any apparent affection held toward them) was little more than contrivance, the side characters weren’t fleshed out well, the villain was a little cliched, there was some predictability, and just a few too many plot-convenient occurrences. But all in all, I’d be up for continuing the series.

Other Reviews:

Bluntly Bookish Book Review: Child of Etherclaw